Fans of the Adult Swim cartoon Rick and Morty wanted their sauce. McDonald’s didn’t have enough. The fans were mad at everyone and everyone was mad at the fans.

I was lying in bed slightly hungover from spending the previous night carving a Stephen A. Smith tweet into a pumpkin.

Still half asleep, but feeling a duty to contribute to the discourse, I made a tweet.

I regret creating Rick and Morty

— Rick & Morty creator (@alexqarbuckle) October 8, 2017

(I should disclose at this point that I am not the creator of Rick and Morty, nor have I ever seen an episode of it.)

I got up and got lunch, and found that after less than an hour my barely-thought-out tweet was getting a startling number of retweets.

Having nothing better to do on a Sunday, I leaned into the bit, changed my display name and bio to “Rick and Morty creator,” and made an announcement.

I am downloading all extant copies of the show, which I poured my heart and soul into, onto a Blu-Ray and throwing it into the river.

— Rick & Morty creator (@alexqarbuckle) October 8, 2017

And a very special thanks to the man who coined Rick’s catchphrase “wubba lubba dub dub,” guest writer and close friend Orenthal J. Simpson.

— Rick & Morty creator (@alexqarbuckle) October 8, 2017

The fans were not pleased. As my phone began to sputter and overheat from thousands of new follower notifications, fans flooded my mentions and inbox with love for the show and horror at its imminent destruction by river.

Creating a work of art like R&M is grueling work. But when you make a difference in people’s lives you remember why you started. pic.twitter.com/AF0GaVTWRu

— Rick & Morty creator (@alexqarbuckle) October 8, 2017

take it back pic.twitter.com/8kDZs9tHhk

— michigan 4-1 (@rescuepackmyles) October 8, 2017

well let this go down as the morning you showed your true bird feather and betrayed your fans, scum. i boycott it from now on

— norton hoole (@northoole) October 8, 2017

As my follower list ballooned from a modest 3,800 to a respectable 13,000, I took the fans on a trip down memory lane, gifting them with previously unrevealed secrets from the production of the show.

In my 1st draft of Rick & Morty, the show was titled Steven Universe. My pal Chuck Manson convinced me to name it after the main characters.

— Rick & Morty creator (@alexqarbuckle) October 8, 2017

The Szechuan sauce is made by me, alone, in my gazebo. We are working on scaling the process up. It’s made out of birds and eels.

— Rick & Morty creator (@alexqarbuckle) October 9, 2017

My #1 regret with R&M was that I couldn’t get Brian the dog from Family Guy on the show (lawyers!). Imagine Brian drinking w/ Rick. Lmao!

— Rick & Morty creator (@alexqarbuckle) October 9, 2017

Rick and Morty is anime.

— Rick & Morty creator (@alexqarbuckle) October 9, 2017

Like all good things, Rick and Morty eventually had to come to an end. Monday dawned rainy and cold.

Today is River Day.

— Rick & Morty creator (@alexqarbuckle) October 9, 2017

I brought R&M to the river and a gull took it. It’s the gull’s show now. I’m done. Thanks to everyone, especially exec producer Jeff Dahmer.

— Rick & Morty creator (@alexqarbuckle) October 9, 2017

It was difficult to watch the show for which I spent years mastering theoretical physics, Narodnaya Volya literature, and the subtleties of Ivan Turgenev’s 1862 epic Fathers and Sons get carried off by a seabird, but I believe it was the right decision.

If anything, the experience only improved my view of the Rick and Morty fan community. Before I decided to destroy the show, I mainly thought of the fans as considering themselves smarter than everyone else, and also for liking to yell, “I’M PICKLE RICK!!!!”

But once I announced that the show would be getting wet and wrecked by a river, the messages that flooded my inbox told stories of how the show had inspired fans, had helped them through difficult times in their lives, and had motivated them to better themselves.

I realized that I could not judge the show or its fans by a handful of bad pickles in the community.